Practice
by clair beaubien
Summary: Tag scene to Regarding Dean. That night at the motel, Sam & Dean have trouble sleeping. Ch 2: the next morning
1. Chapter 1

_Dean was dying. He was watching Dean die and there was nothing he could do._

Sitting alone at the table in the darkened motel room, Sam scrolled through the pictures on his computer screen, the collection of every picture of him and Dean that he'd saved through the years. Funny, serious, caught off guard - when sleep wouldn't come tonight, he'd put them into a slide show on continuous loop and sat up watching them. He'd been watching them an hour or more now.

 _Dean was dying. He was watching Dean die and there was nothing he could do._

The witches and the memory spell were thirteen hours behind them. Dean'd pulled into a motel just after nightfall and fallen asleep just as soon as he went to bed, but Sam hadn't even tried to go to sleep.

 _Dean was dying. He was watching Dean die and there was nothing he could do._

Dean had made a joke of it, of course, of almost dying, _'who's the hippie?'_ and everything was back to normal. Except, Sam realized, watching Dean dying _was_ his normal. The electrocution that destroyed Dean's heart and the truck that destroyed the Impala, Dean dying over and over at the Mystery Spot and hell and the ghost sickness and Stull and the vampire and Metatron and the Mark and Amara and the deal to get out of isolation and – and - now this -

 _Dean was dying. He was watching Dean die and there was nothing he could do._

Over on his bed in the dark room, Dean sat up like he'd been chased awake. He reached for the light but stopped when he saw Sam. "What are you doing up?"

"What are _you_ doing up?" Sam asked back.

"I asked first."

"Yeah, but I was awake first."

Dean glared at him. "That makes no sense, you know. You all right?"

"Yeah. Just –" Sam shrugged one shoulder and casually pushed closed his laptop " - couldn't sleep. You?"

"Same. Maybe we should've just driven through to home."

"You needed to sleep."

"Apparently not." Dean left the light off and crossed the room to the mini fridge. He took out two bottles of beer, set one near Sam's hand then sat across from him. "So, why can't you sleep?"

 _Dean was dying. He was watching Dean die and there was nothing he could do._

"Wired, I guess. You?"

Dean shrugged and opened his beer and looked around as he took a sip. All signs, Sam knew, that he didn't want to answer.

"I dreamed I shot you," Dean finally said. "I dreamed that the witch said he was my brother and you were the witch and I shot you."

Sam cracked his beer and had a sip and shook his head. "You wouldn't have shot me. Even if he had said that. You knew, deep down, you knew me."

"Uh – _no_ – I didn't. I couldn't even remember my own name."

"There's a difference between knowing and remembering. You knew how to use the gun, didn't you? How to load the bullets, how to aim and fire. You knew witches were bad. You knew how to read the post-it notes. Maybe you didn't remember my name but you _knew_ me."

Dean shrugged again and rolled his eyes and drank more beer. "Well, anyway, thanks for saving me. I know I gave you crap for calling in Rowena, but it worked. You got it done."

Sam made himself smile ~ _Dean was dying. He was watching Dean die and there was nothing he could do ~_ "You're welcome"

"All right, I'm going to try this again." Dean finished his beer and got back in bed. "I gotta tell you, Sammy," he said before he fell asleep. "I don't know how you managed to stay so calm through it all."

"Ha," Sam chuckled for Dean's sake and lifted his beer bottle for another sip.

 _Dean was dying. He was watching Dean die and there was nothing he could do._

"Practice I guess," he whispered.

The End.


	2. Chapter 2

The sky out the motel window was gray-blue when Dean woke up. He groaned and stretched and rubbed his eyes. Sunrise in February was close enough to seven a.m. to get up and get ready to head home. He sat up and saw Sam sitting on the far edge of his bed.

His perfectly made, obviously not slept in, bed.

"Dude – did you go to bed at all?"

Sam shook his head and looked back over his shoulder. His eyes were dark. "I tried; never really took."

Dean got up and walked around to stand in front of him. "Did you try taking anything?" he asked. "Shot of whiskey maybe and give it another try? We can stay here a few more hours."

"No. I can sleep in the car. Or when we get to the Bunker."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"Because last I checked, you and avoiding sleep is never a good thing."

"I'm not avoiding it. I'm just – not tired."

"Your black eyes are telling me something else," Dean said. "This is more than being wired," he prodded but Sam didn't answer. "What's going on?"

"Nothing." Sam stood up. "We should get on the road." He walked to the kitchen wall and started making coffee.

"It's because of the Halloween candy, isn't it?" Dean asked. Sometimes the fastest way to get Sam to talk about something he didn't want to talk about was to push something totally stupid. "I'll buy you some more." When Sam didn't answer, he pushed on, "We'll get breakfast and then stop at the nearest grocery store and pick you up any kind of candy you want. What's your favorite? Reeses? Those Cadbury eggs, maybe? Those are out now. No, wait, I know. You like Kit-Kat 'cause you can be OCD about breaking them into their fingers, right? "

" _You were dying_ ," Sam spat out fast, caving to Dean's prodding. "You were fading away right in front of me _and I couldn't stop it._ "

Dean flinched back a little at the words and the vehemence behind them. Sam was scared. He was scared and he was hiding it behind being pissed.

"You stopped it," Dean said.

"Did I?"

"I'm here. I'm alive."

"That was Rowena's spell."

"That was _you,_ figuring out what happened, getting Rowena to help, finding the witches – _hey -"_ Sam was shaking his head and turning to walk to the bathroom and Dean grabbed his arm to stop him. " _Hey,"_ Dean said again. "What?"

"All I do is watch you die, Dean. I watch you fight, I watch you dying, I watch you die. That's all I've ever done and – it's just –" He scrubbed a hand down his face. "Even in just the past few months, I thought you were dead with Amara, then I thought Princess Pantsuit was going to kill you, then the deal to get out of isolation. Now, yesterday, I had to watch you – you were – _disappearing_. You were losing you. I was losing you. I was losing – I was losing us. I was losing _us._ Every time I lose you or nearly lose you or watch you decide to throw yourself into the jaws of whatever Big  & Bad we're fighting – "

Despite the ranting, emoting, gesturing he was doing, Sam stopped and threw up his hands and sighed.

"You know – let's just get ready and go, all right? You're all right, you're alive. It's okay, we're okay. We'll head home and it'll be all right. It'll be okay."

That was a lot of ' _all right_ s' and ' _okays_ ' for one sentence but Dean let it go and they got dressed and packed, out of the motel and on the road.

"Breakfast?" Dean asked. Sam was slumped against the car door.

"If you want. Yeah."

"What do _you_ want?"

Sam dragged a hand down his face with a sigh. "I don't know. Whatever."

"Man, you really are exhausted. Whyn't you lay down in the back? Okay? We get some breakfast and then you lie down in the back."

Sam didn't answer. Dean didn't push. He found a roadside diner and pulled into the parking lot.

"All right, I'll get breakfast to go. You stay here and try to get some rest - "

As he was opening his door, Dean saw Sam tense and move like he was going to open his door and get out as well, then he pushed himself back into the seat.

"Or, you can come with," Dean said.

"No, no. I'm good. I'm fine," Sam answered without looking at him.

"Come with me, _please?"_ Dean cajoled, but Sam didn't respond. So Dean stayed in the car and shut his door and waited but Sam didn't start talking.

"What's really going on?"

"Nothing," Sam said, in the small voice, flat expression, no eye contact way that meant a hell of a storm was breaking inside. The storm that maybe, _probably_ , had been building all through Dean's backwards ' _Big_ ' experience and now that everybody was _all right_ and _okay,_ now Sam could let himself feel it. Only it was overwhelming him.

Dean knew he could talk to Sam. From years of experience, he knew that he could argue with him, provoke him, take the shortcut and push him to explode and get everything out in the open, ugly, blunt and immediate. He'd tried that already this morning, the less-intense version, needling Sam about the Halloween candy. And what had Sam said? He was angry, worried, afraid because he'd nearly lost Dean. Because he was forever losing Dean, forever losing _them_. Forever in danger of losing himself.

So, from those same years of experience, Dean knew the best way to help Sam deal with it was to let him deal with it the way he wanted to, the way he needed to. The way that was less messy, less painful, less ugly. The best way was to just be there with him.

"You going to get breakfast?" Sam asked.

"You coming in?"

Sam gave him a look that was kind of amused and mostly annoyed. "Do you want me to lay down and sleep or come in and eat?"

"I want you to be okay, Sam. Whatever that takes, whatever you need. That's what I want."

Sam's expression narrowed, pinched in liked he was focused on something on the glove box. "That's what I want, too. I want you to be okay."

"I'm okay," Dean said and cut off Sam's guaranteed next argument. "Yeah, there'll be a next time. There's always going to be a next time. But right now, I'm okay."

"And I'm okay, too."

"You haven't slept, you haven't eaten. You're reliving things that turned out okay and envisioning their worst case scenario. That's not okay."

"I'll sleep when we get to the Bunker. When I know we're safe."

"C'mon in and eat, then. We eat, we get back on the road, we get home, you sleep."

"Dean – "

"Sam, this is no longer open to negotiation."

"No – I just – yeah – I know – just – "

"Just?" Dean asked when Sam stopped talking.

"Just –" Sam started again and Dean knew there was a flood of thought and emotion behind his intense expression. A flood that was succinctly condensed into one thing, "I'm glad you're OK."

Dean squeezed Sam's shoulder fast but hard and condensed his own storm of thought and meaning. " _We're_ okay. C'mon, let's get some breakfast."

And Sam followed him into the diner for breakfast, and fell asleep in the car before they were even halfway to the Bunker.


End file.
